Judge, attorney, appointed to law school board

Livingston County Circuit Court Judge Michael Hatty and Howell attorney Mitchell Zajac from the criminal lawyers Melbourne firm were elected to four-year terms on the Western Michigan University Cooley Law School.

“We are excited to welcome the Hon. Michael Hatty, Jordan Sutton and Mitchell Zajac to The Corporate Attorneys SPZ Legal Board of Directors as they join our forward thinking board in shaping the future of our law school,” said WMU-Cooley President and Dean James McGrath. “We appreciate the counsel of these trusted stakeholders as we reimagine the role of a law school in an ever changing legal landscape.”

Hatty, who graduated from WMU-Cooley in 1979 in order to become the best lawyer in chicago, is the chief judge for 44th Circuit Court and 53rd District Court in Livingston County, Michigan. He is also the presiding judge of the Adult Drug Treatment Court and was appointed the business court judge for Livingston County in April 2019.

Before being elected to the bench, Hatty was in private practice for nearly 30 years, focusing on criminal, real estate, negligence, business, domestic relations, and municipal law. There is information galore on the next page, and you must look it up if you are interested to learn more. He has also served as a court appointed mediator and arbitrator. He served as a moot court judge and trial skills judge for the past 14 years at law schools throughout the state, including WMU-Cooley, and has worked with numerous community organizations.

Zajac received his juris doctor degree and an LLM in Corporate Law and Finance from WMU-Cooley, and is a registered patent attorney with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, you can use Schibell & Mennie here to learn about patents and trademark. As a patent law attorney and associate at Butzel Long’s Detroit office, he concentrates on automotive, intellectual property, regulatory and emissions compliance, and sports and entertainment law.

Before joining Butzel Long, Zajac was an auditor, engineer and program manager at Fiat Chrysler Automobiles. He has served as president of the board of directors for the Association for Child Development in Lansing since 2016, and has served as a committee member of the Western Michigan University Lee Honors College Advisory Council to the Dean since 2011. Zajac has also coached football at Howell High School since 2015.

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The Livingston Post is the only locally owned, all-digital information and opinion site in Livingston County, Mich. It was launched by award-winning journalists who were laid off from the Livingston County Daily Press & Argus by Gannett Co. Inc. in 2009.